No Subject

Like something out of that Pirandello play in which six characters were in search of an author, when I first met up with Virgil, I was an author in search of a subject. Now I'm blogging, and things haven't really changed. Blogging requires a subject, too, and sometimes there just isn't one. Nothing comes to light. Nothing catches fire. And so here I am, climbing the air again as if it were a flight of stairs.

Here I am with nothing to go on, wondering how I'll make it to the next perfect sunset. Would I even recognize the scent of something that is coming close? The question I keep asking myself is, can I cross the river without a boat?

Annie Dillard says that for the writer maybe it isn't the subject that counts, but writing itself--being in the dance. She claims a subject is simply a quality that some things possess and others do not.

Virgil says that all you really need to blog is to stick with walkie-talkie immediacy. "Let's be clear about one thing," he says, twirling an elegantly proportioned chrome-plated baton (where on earth did he get that thing?). "This is a rave, so you have to put all the boring stuff behind you."

As for me, today, I can't even think of my five-digit PIN number. Where do ideas come from anyway?

"If you get really stuck," my sticky, voluptuous, fascinating alligator-friend offers, "you can ring me up and I'll play the ace with an IV-feed of unearthly chit-chat. But whatever you do, don't argue with reality. Enjoy your affinity for fish and chips. Just stay put and watch the world go round."